MALARIA AND GUINEA PIGS ARE AMONG VALENTINES DAY REMEMBRANCES

Think Valentines Day and usually young romantic love comes to mind. Old long-lasting love is pretty good too. This will be the 44th Valentines Day Jim and I have been together. Well, not actually “together” because Jim travels a lot. Let me put it this way: this is the 44th year that Jim and I are still sweethearts who not only love each other…but we are still IN love. And that makes all the difference.

The first Valentines Day we celebrated together we knew each other only for six months, and I was just fifteen. Jim, who was twenty, did precisely what my parents would have expected him to do at my tender age: he gave me a teddy bear with a friendship card. He gave my mother a HUGE Valentine…all hearts and lace and flowery prose that declared undying love and devotion for her cooking prowess. I got a card that said: “Dear One, our love is something that will last and last…kinda like a case of malaria!” Signed, “Yuck-Yuck, Lots of Love, Jim.” I still have both Valentine cards but now you know why my parents never had a second thought about their fifteen-year-old dating an “older man.” My parents figured that I’d never get serious with a guy who acted much more like my best friend than a boyfriend.

Our second Valentines Day together, I got the hearts and flowers Valentines right along with my mother…but she got the bigger box of candy and I was okay with that. By our third Valentines Day Jim Baird had already asked me to marry him. I knew that I’d found the love of my life and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Our fourth Valentines Day together we were planning a June wedding. Jim gave me a beautiful diamond watch to match my engagement ring. He hid the watch in the fur of a shaggy pink kitten stuffed animal. I loved the watch almost as much as the little pink kitten…after all, I was still only 18.

The first Valentines Day we were married Jim surprised me again. This time, although it was cute and furry…it wasn’t a stuffed animal. He bought me a guinea pig! Jim tied
a red bow around the little black and white rodent’s neck and “surprised” me. We named him “Willie.” Willie lived in a pen in our kitchen because that was the only place we had room in our apartment. Even to this day I can’t look at a guinea pig without thinking about Valentines Day. Willie was our first and last guinea pig.

The following Valentines Day we dressed our six month- old baby boy up in a red sleeper, (Scott, not Willie) and stuck a heart on his head, and we all fell asleep over dinner. Five years into our marriage, Jim forgot Valentines Day. Twenty years, later, I forgot it too, and tried to make it up to him. I downloaded a syrupy Valentines Day card, printed it out, and presented it to him at his desk. It just wasn’t the same. The other thing I remember about our many Valentines Days together (or not) is that for two years in a row Jim bought me the same card that read: “You’re an angel of a wife and I love you like the devil…Happy Valentines Day!”

“Jim!” This is the SAME card you bought me last year,” I admonished. “Is not!” he said with conviction. “Is too…and I can prove it,” I said as I opened my nightstand drawer and retrieved a duplicate card. “You’re still an angel of a wife,” he said sheepishly, “even if you save evidence to convict me.” “No…I save cards because
I LOVE you.”

Last week Jim had to clean out his suitcase to have it repaired and he put its contents in a plastic bag. When I picked up the bag, a bundle of cards slid out. Among them was last year’s Valentines Day card that I had slipped into his suitcase so he’d have it to open in his hotel room. Jim not only saved that Valentines card, but every single card that I slipped into his suitcase. That’s another thing about best friends who have been in love for over four decades…after all those years, you begin to think alike.